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At the end of the day it was not the revolt itself, nor the myriad episodes of which it was composed, nor the local leaders and the guerrilla armies which sustained it for so long, which survived in popular recollection and in historiographical tradition. Rather was it the figure of Owain Glyn Dŵr himself. He established for himself both in popular consciousness and in written histories a role that no other Welshman could emulate; and he seems to have done so at a remarkably early date. Owain Glyn Dŵr was both a historic and a mythic figure. He was a man of the recent and recoverable past who...

At the end of the day it was not the revolt itself, nor the myriad episodes of which it was composed, nor the local leaders and the guerrilla armies which sustained it for so long, which survived in popular recollection and in historiographical tradition. Rather was it the figure of Owain Glyn Dŵr himself. He established for himself both in popular consciousness and in written histories a role that no other Welshman could emulate; and he seems to have done so at a remarkably early date. Owain Glyn Dŵr was both a historic and a mythic figure. He was a man of the recent and recoverable past who had yet secured early membership of the pantheon of timeless heroes. He was, and has remained, exclusively and proprietorially Welsh. He had created an image for himself and his cause which allowed him to be converted, in the fullness of time, into a national hero.